ON THE 'manure' GEATELS OF WEXFOED. 211 



questionable if this part of Ireland has ever been subjected to glacial 

 action as generally understood. 



The southern side of Wexford Harbour and Wexford Hill, Rosslare 

 Bay, and the adjacent coast cliffs are composed of an earthy loam, which 

 in places contains marine shells. At Ballygeary, near the summit of the 

 cliffs, seventy feet elevation, and in the railway cutting, they may be ob- 

 tained not infrequently, a thin bed of shingle, extending either side of 

 Rosslare Pier, having yielded about thirty species, these being of a dif- 

 ferent type from the Wexford gravels, and perhaps representing the 

 sandy beds from which Captain James obtained littoral shells. 



This earthy loam is separated by a bed of sand, more or less persistent, 

 one to three feet thick, almost unfossiliferous, one specimen only being 

 obtained from an almost unfossiliferous dense black clay, with very rarely 

 an exotic pebble. An hour's search procured only two fragments of Pec- 

 tunculus and Astarte. This clay is derived almost entirely from the calp 

 or black limestone, which is now being woi-ked at Drinagh for cement, 

 a rolled fossil Productus, &c., being occasionally present, and reposes 

 directly upon the palaeozoic schists and felsites. 



Professor Hull having asserted the identity of the faunas of the Wex- 

 ford gravels and those of the Middle Glacial deposits, a careful examination 

 was made of the typical section at Ballybraek, in Killiney Bay, on several 

 occasions, and the species then obtained, together with those recorded by 

 other authors and collectors, have raised the known fauna to about forty- 

 five species. Unfortunately the non-localisation of the fossils given by 

 Captain James and the probability that both the Wexford gravels and 

 the cliffs at Ballygeary and elsewhere are included by him render com- 

 parison uncertain. This is the more to be regretted because certain 

 species of Mitra, Fusus, &c., are recorded by him, most of the specimens 

 being lost, and only a few preserved in the Museum of Practical 

 Geology. 



The writer's own collections from the gravels do not embrace more 

 than thirty-five to forty species at present identified, others still having 

 to be worked out, and explorations still being carried on ; and his results 

 are so totally opposite to the remarks of Professor Hull that he ventures 

 to ask the Council of the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science for an additional grant to enable him to continue his researches 

 into the age and extent of these gravels, the history of the early making 

 of Ireland in its present form largely depending upon a solution of the 

 question. 



The fossils obtained will be shortly handed over to the National Col- 

 lection as soon as they are worked out in detail, and are in number about 

 as follows : — 



Sp. 

 Wexford Manure Gravels ..... 35-40 

 ,, Loams (Ballygeary) .... 30-35 



Killiney Bay 30- 



Balbriggan ........ 20- 



Your reporter respectfully asks for a further grant of \hl., the former 

 grant being exhausted. 



p 2 



